Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Combat is scored on the beat and will still let you win off it. Playing to the rhythm is the difference between a rank and a mess.

Swinging is forgiving by design. The spikes are the crowded arena fights on Ultimate, where one unblocked rifle burst is most of a health bar.

The genre’s shape at a fraction of its hostility — and the only one on this shelf that ships with a menu that will hand you a gun and skip the fight.

Crushing is the only setting where the shooting bites. Everything else is a set piece that restarts you a few seconds before it went wrong.

Story missions checkpoint constantly and aim assist does most of the shooting. The spikes are the driving and the gold medal objectives, which nobody is obliged to take.

Two players, one screen, no difficulty setting. The hard part is coordination, and the game restarts you both a second after it goes wrong.

A blockbuster that expects to be finished, with the actual demands parked in optional bosses you can walk past without the story noticing.

Every individual mechanic is trivial; the difficulty is entirely another human being who cannot hear what you are shouting.

The shooting is forgiving and Dead Eye forgives the rest. The difficulty is deliberate friction — animations you cannot cancel, a horse you have to keep alive, and mission failure for stepping outside the script.

A lullaby until the drop speed crosses whatever your reading threshold happens to be, at which point it becomes a pure reflex test with a very good soundtrack.